Saturday, October 31, 2009

Just dropping by to wish you all a rather belated Halloween. Here's Boswell in his hot dog costume:

I'll probably be rather quiet for the next few days, as I've got page proofs of The Stolen Crown to review and am getting on with the Margaret of Anjou novel (it's not been a very good time for dukes or for the English in France).

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

(Boswell's brother Merritt, who lives with my parents, is visiting while my parents are at Disney World with my great-nephews. Unlike certain people I can think of, we are nice to our nephews in our family.)

Monday, October 26, 2009

First, I want to congratulate Alianore and Lady D on their new Edward II website! It looks great, and is chock-full of information. Stop on by and soak up the Edward II knowledge it contains.

Second, I've put a couple of new letters in the In Their Own Words section of my own website, these from Richard III and Henry VII to their respective mothers. I have to say I think Henry's letter is the more personal and friendly, but take a look and see what you think. (EDIT: After reading a Yahoo posting which claimed that Elizabeth Woodville was one of 16 Woodville siblings who lived to adulthood--when in fact there were only 12, including Elizabeth, who lived to adulthood--I also added my article on the lesser-known Woodville siblings to my website. From what orifice are people pulling this nonsense about the Woodvilles?)

Third, Michele over at Reader's Respite is giving away a copy of Hugh and Bess. Her only condition is that entrants must agree to read The Traitor's Wife, which of course suits me just fine. So as a bonus, I'll send the winner of her giveaway a copy of The Traitor's Wife! And I'm giving away a second copy of The Traitor's Wife to anyone who comments here before November 1. (Except for the person who keeps attempting to post spam in Japanese on this blog. Dude, give it up. That's why I moderate comments.)

To the Quenes grace for the disguysing, 10s-.To a mariner that brought an eagle, 6s. 8d.

To one that brought haukes from the Newfounded Island, £1.

To Clays goying to Richemount with wylde catts and popyngays of the Newfound Island for his costs, 13s. 4d.

To Portyngales that brought popyngais and catts of the mountaigne with other stuf to the Kinges grace, £5.

More expenses (which include grimmer expenditures like those for the burying of the Earl of Warwick) can be found in Excerpta Historica, edited by Samuel Bentley. It's on the Internet Archive and Google Books.

Speaking of works available in the public domain, I've added a section to my website featuring letters written by some of the historical figures in my novels. I'll be adding regularly to the collection, which is taken from books that have gone out of copyright. So far, I've got letters from William de la Pole, Margaret of Anjou, and Margaret Beaufort up there, and will be adding more, including letters from Richard III and Henry VII to their respective mums.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

I was checking my website statistics this morning, and on the page that lists links from which people reached my website, I found that no fewer than three people came from this site:

http://wvjails.info/

Beats me, but if you're on that site for a good reason (or, as seems more likely, for a bad reason) and have some time to kill (I don't mean that literally, folks) while you're waiting to call your lawyer, you might be interested in reading this post on Richard III and bail I did a while back.

Incidentally, when growing up, I was always told that if I committed a crime, I should cross a state line so I would end up in federal prison instead of state prison. I have no idea why the people in my really quite law-abiding family felt impelled to give that advice, but it's stuck with me.

Monday, October 19, 2009

I'm back from the annual general meeting of the American Branch of the Richard III Society, which took place in, of all places, Las Vegas. Since the Saturday banquet was a costume-optional occasion, this gave me the opportunity to strut through a casino floor wearing a medieval gown and hennin, an opportunity I will surely not have again any time soon.

My fellow Woodvillians were either too busy with their fulfilling lives elsewhere to make it or hadn't had time to practice the secret Woodvillian handshake, but nonetheless it was a fun conference.

Anyway, I gave a presentation on medieval gambling, the text of which I've included below if you're interested. I didn't pass out at the podium from stage fright, which I always consider the mark of a successful presentation.

Oh, and my gambling losses--one dollar in the airport slot machine--were most unimpressive. (Getting to the conference via Airtran--my flight Friday was delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight and have to spend seven hours in Atlanta waiting for the next available one--was quite a gamble enough!)

Plantagenets at Play: Gambling in Medieval England

Whether you were in a tavern, a ship, a solar in a great castle, or camped in a battlefield, no matter what your station in life, there was one way you could pass the time in medieval society: by gambling.

Games of chance, of course, have an ancient history, and cubic dice appeared as far back as the seventh century B.C. [1] There were many different sorts of dice games. Among the favorites were raffle, where the winner had to throw all three dice alike or the highest pair, and hazard, which seems to have been aptly named because it had the worst reputation. It was most often played in taverns, and it attracted cheaters, who if caught could be led to the pillory and made to wear their false dice around their necks. [2]

Crooked dice were quite common: the Museum of London has some examples, including a stash of dice bearing only high numbers or only low numbers and dice that had been weighted with drops of mercury. Such dice, the museum website reports, were called “fulhams,” apparently because “the Thames-side village of Fulham was notorious as the haunt of dice-sharpers.” [3]

On a more pleasant note, when Hugh le Barber claimed in 1307 to have been miraculously cured of blindness, he noted that he could once again see to play dice as well as chess. Commissioners sent to test his story reported that he could now see the points of a dice. [4] The apprentice in Chaucer’s Cook’s Tale was an accomplished dice player:

For in the toune nas ther no prentys That fairer koude caste a paire of dys [5]

Dice was the simplest form of gambling, but it was by no means confined to the lower classes. The future Henry IV, one of the most well traveled of English kings, lost at dice at Calais, in Prussia, and at Danzig. [6] Henry VII was an especially avid gambler, as we shall see: dice was just one of the means by which he lost money. [7] John Howard, the future Duke of Norfolk, paid five pence for a “bale [that is, a pair] of dysse.” [8]

A close relation of dicing was a game called cross and pile, named for the two sides of a coin—in other words, “heads or tails.” One of the royal practitioners of this sport was the ill-fated Edward II, who had to borrow money from his barber and his usher to play at the game. This appalled a nineteenth-century antiquarian, who wrote that such pastimes would now be considered “insufferably low.” One can only wonder what the man would have made of Las Vegas. [9]

Checkers, or queek, was another way a gambler could be parted from his money. One enterprising soul designed a checkerboard with depressed squares so that those betting that their pebbles would land in a black or a white square would lose. The board was only profitable for a short time, however: it cost its proprietor an hour in Newgate for three consecutive days. [10]

Betting on horses was a perennial favorite, with John Howard, the future Duke of Norfolk, being a notable devotee. Howard also bet on cockfighting. [11]

Medieval people, in fact, could turn almost any type of recreation into a money-losing enterprise. Henry VII lost money at tennis and archery as well as traditional games of chance, [12] and the future Henry IV proved to be as unlucky at tables as he was at dice. [13] Even chess, the most respectable of medieval pastimes, could be bet upon. [14]

Fifteenth-century England did see one new arrival on the gaming front: cards. Though cards existed in tenth-century China, European playing cards apparently derived from Egyptian models. [15] In 1371, they are first mentioned in Spain, [16] and by 1377, both Florentine and Parisian officials had enacted restrictions on playing cards. [17]

It would be several decades before cards became popular in England. Chaucer, it has often been noted, never mentions them in his works. The earliest reference I have found in England is in 1413, and it has a good Yorkist pedigree.

Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, was uncle to Richard, Duke of York, and therefore a great-uncle of Edward IV and Richard III. He had a good claim to the throne and for that reason, Henry IV and Henry V kept a close eye on him. In the period from September 1413 to April 1414, the twenty-three-year-old was traveling in the company of Henry V—and losing over 157 pounds in gaming. Mortimer’s companions must have been delighted when the young lord proposed a game of chance, because the word perdebat—“lost”—occurs with distressing frequency in his household accounts. Mortimer lost at tables, raffle and chance, a game called devant (apparently a dicing game)—and at cards. [18]

Despite Mortimer’s enthusiasm for cards, it would be decades before another mention of them occurs in English sources. That is in 1459 in the Paston letters, where Margaret Paston reports that over Christmas, a widowed acquaintance forbade the members of her household to engage in dancing, harping, luting, singing, or “loud disports,” but permitted them to play tables, chess, and cards. [19]

In 1463, Edward IV’s Parliament forbid the importation of playing cards as well as the importation of dice and tennis balls, in an effort to protect English craftsmen. [20] This, as card expert David Parlett points out, suggests that they were being produced in England, although no English cards from this period have been found.

The following year, Edward IV secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, and at least one of the king’s new extended family members was a card player. In November 1464, when at Reading with the king, John Howard lent Eliza Scales, Anthony Woodville’s wife, eight shillings and four pence to play at cards. [21]

The early English cards did not bear the suits of spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds that they do today; those suits made their first appearance on French cards in around 1470 and are accordingly referred to as the French suits. Parlett suggests that the early English cards bore what are known as Latin suitmarks: swords, clubs, cups, and coins. [22]

Though Parlett states that no English cards dating before 1590 have been found, [23] some earlier packs from other countries are extant. One of the most striking is a set from the Netherlands known as the Hunting Pack, which dates from about 1470 to 1480. The four suits in the 52-card pack consist of hunting accessories: bundles of cord, dog collars, double nooses, and hunting horns. Each suit has a king, queen, and jester and 10 numbered cards. The entire set can be seen in the Cloisters in New York. Its website indicates that other than Tarot cards, this is the only complete set of illuminated playing cards to survive from the fifteenth century. [24] One wonders if Margaret of York or her brothers might have seen this set!

Gambling, of course, is a social concern now, and was in medieval times as well. Most anti-gambling legislation in medieval England was aimed at ordinary people. During Richard I’s crusade of 1190, for instance, anyone below the degree of knight was prohibited from gambling. Knights and clergy, on the other hand, could play as long as they did not lose more than twenty shillings in a single day. If they did pass the twenty-shilling limit, they had to cough up one hundred shillings. Not surprisingly, Richard the Lionhearted and Philip of France were exempt. [25]

Edward IV’s first Parliament in 1461 was not only bad news for Lancastrians, but for card players. (Lancastrian card players must have been in particularly bleak spirits that year.) As part of a general crackdown on lawlessness, Parliament directed, “And also that no lord or other person of lower estate, condition or degree, whatever he may be, shall allow any dicing or playing at cards within his house, or wherever else he may prevent it, by any of his servants or others outside the twelve days of Christmas; and if any presume to do the contrary at any time, that he shall expel them from his house and service.” [26]

Again and again, medieval English kings forbade commoners from engaging in various pastimes, including football and dicing, ostensibly because it distracted them from practicing the archery skills they needed to defend their country. This must have been a losing proposition, since successive Parliaments kept passing such legislation. Edward IV himself had a second go at an anti-gaming law in 1478. The act, entitled “Closh” (a bowling game that Elizabeth Woodville’s ladies were spotted playing in 1472), conquers up a world straight out of the film Reefer Madness:

To the king our liege lord; the commons assembled in this present parliament pray, that where according to the laws of this land no person should play any unlawful games such as dice, quoits, football and similar games, but that every strong and able bodied person should practise archery because the defence of this land relies heavily on archers; contrary to which laws the said games and several newly invented games called closh, kayles, half-bowl, hand-in and hand-out, and checker-board are played daily in various parts of this land, both by persons of good repute and those of lesser estate, not virtuously-disposed, who fear neither to offend God by not attending divine service on holy days, nor to break the laws of this land, to their own impoverishment, and by their wicked incitement and encouragement they induce others to play such games so that they are completely stripped of their possessions and impoverished, setting a pernicious example to many of your lieges, if such unprofitable games are allowed to continue for long, because by such means many different murders, robberies and other most heinous felonies are frequently committed and perpetrated in various parts of this land, to the very great disquiet and trouble of many of your well-disposed lieges, and the unbearable loss of their goods: which players have daily been supported and favoured in their said misbehaviour by the officers and occupiers of various messuages, tenements, gardens and other places in which they play and pursue their said wicked and disgraceful games. [27]

Henry VII passed legislation in the same spirit. In 1495, his parliament decreed that “no apprentice, agricultural worker, labourer or employee in a craft shall play at the tables from 10 January next except for food and drink only, or at tennis, closh, dice, cards, bowls or any other illegal game in any way other than at Christmas, and at Christmas to play only in the dwelling house of his master or where the master of any of the said servants is present, upon pain of public imprisonment in the stocks for one day.” [28] Household ordinances also restricted gambling: in 1468, the servants of George, Duke of Clarence, were subject to dismissal if they played games for money, except during the twelve days of Christmas. [29]

Whereas commoners were the target of such legislation, kings and their offspring could gamble to their heart’s content, if they were so inclined. In 1377, mummers entertaining the future Richard II at Kennington played dice with the young prince for a ball of gold, a cup of gold, and a gold ring. Young Richard won each object, because the dice “were subtly made so that when the Prince threw he would win.” [30]

On the whole, however, in gaming, the House of Lancaster seems to be ahead of the House of York. Henry IV as Earl of Derby, we have seen, was quite fond of games. I have found nothing to indicate whether Henry V had a taste for gaming, but as young Edmund Mortimer suffered so many gambling losses while in that king’s company, it must have been common in his household. Despite his drearily pious reputation, Henry VI is known to have lost sums at gaming. [31]

Edward IV seems to have been fond of a board game called fox and geese, though whether he played it for stakes is not recorded. [32] He ordered “two foxes and fourty-six hounds of silver over-gilt to form two sets of merelles.” [33] Fox and geese (or in Edward IV’s case, fox and hounds?) was essentially a hunting game in which the fox captured the geese. [34] (Others who enjoyed the game were the monks of what became Gloucester Cathedral; a board was found cut into the benches there. [35])

Sadly, I have found no indication of whether Richard III was a gambler—unless, of course, one counts his fatal charge at Bosworth as a gamble. Charles Ross notes that he enjoyed hawking and commissioned his servants to search out new birds for him, [36] but there is no indication of his attitude toward even eminently respectable pastimes such as chess. It may or may not be significant that in his censorious account of Richard’s Christmas court of 1484, the Croyland chronicler complained that “too much attention was paid to singing and dancing and to vain exchanges of clothing between Queen Anne and Lady Elizabeth,” but did not mention gambling in his parade of horribles. [37]

Richard, however, was evidently not disposed to tolerate much frivolity among his common subjects. In May 1485, he sent a letter to James Herde, bailiff of the town and lordship of Ware, marshalling the archery argument and threatening the man with the loss of his position if he did not bring the locals into line:

Forsomoche as it is commen (to) unto oure knowlaige that diverse & many personnes inhabitants within oure said Towne whiche be of habilite in theire persones & expert in shoting approved a lawfulle game and necessarily requisite to be exercised for the defense of this oure Royalme refusing the same game applie theim customably to use carding dising Boling playing at the tenys Coyting picking and othre (unf) unlefulle and inhibited disportes. . . . marveling that ye have suffred any suche inconveyences soo to be used within youre Offices.

Those who continued to play the prohibited games after a warning (along with offenders caught taking hares, partridges, pheasants, and other game) were to be committed to prison to remain there at the king’s pleasure. [38] Whether Herde managed to bring his unruly town into line is unknown.

Henry VII, who has been rather unfairly saddled with a reputation as a miser, was quite fond of gaming. Extracts from his accounts aptly demonstrate the willingness with which he was parted from his money through playing cards, dice, tennis, and even chess:

To the King to pley at cardes, £5.

To the King which he lost at cardes, £4.

For a par of tables and dise bought, 1s. 4d.

To the King for his losse at cards, £2.

To a Spaynyard the tenes pleyer, £4.

To Sir Charles Somerset for the Kinges losse at tenes, to Sir Robert Curson, with the balls, £1. 7s. 8d.

To the King for pleying at the cards, £3.

To Hugh Denes for the Kinges losse at tenes, 14s. and for a silke girdle, 6s. 8d.—£1. 0s. 8d.

For the Kinges losse at the paune pley, 7s. 8d.

To the Kinges grace to play at the cardes, in gold, £20., in grotts, l00s. in grotts, £19., and in grotes, 60s.

To the new pleyer at tenes, £4.

To Jakes Haute for the tenes playe, £10.

For the Kinges losse at cardes at Tawnton, £9.

To Hugh Denes for the Kinges pley at dice upon Friday last passed, £7. 15s.

To the Kinges losse at cardes at Hegecote, 3s. 4d.

For the Kinges losse at tenes, 8s.

Delivered the Kinges grace for play on Sonday at night, £1. 13s. 4d.

To my Lorde of York to pley at dice, £3. 6s. 8d.

For the Kinges losse at chesse, 13s. 4d.To Weston for the King to pley at cleke at Burton-opon- Trent, £2. [39]

On one occasion, Henry VII lost half a mark at cards to his seven-year-old son Henry. [40] The future Henry VIII did rather better than his older brother Arthur, who lost forty shillings in 1496. [41] The Tudor family matriarch, Margaret Beaufort, was not above wagering herself. Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood report that she “sent a man of Buckden to go on pilgrimage on her behalf whilst she gambled at blank or cards”! [42]

Elizabeth of York’s privy purse expenses from the last year of her life show her to have been an avid player as well. In August 1502, 10 shillings were delivered to her for “tabuls”; in October 1502, Lady Guildford delivered 13 shillings and 4 pence for the queen to play at dice. In December, the queen received 100 shillings “for hure disporte at cardes this Cristmas.” [43]

The subject of Elizabeth of York and cards leaves us with a final question: Was Elizabeth the “playing card queen”? This has been stated as fact many times, including by an authority no less august than The Weekly World News, [44] but there seems to be little or no evidence to support this proposition, other than the vague resemblance between Elizabeth of York’s most famous portrait and the stylized queen that appears on modern playing cards. Parlett makes no mention of Elizabeth of York. The International Playing-Card Society’s website states that Anglo-American cards take their design from the patterns used in Rouen in the 1400’s, where the kings, queens, and jacks mainly represent named figures from antiquity, although some of the names may have become corrupted over time. [45] Notably, in a fifteenth-century French set, the Queen of Diamonds clutches a flower, just as do Elizabeth of York and the Queen of Hearts in English decks. [46] Unfortunately, then, it seems as if the story of Elizabeth of York inspiring the Queen of Hearts must be consigned to the stuff of legend, though we can take comfort in the fact that the queen did enjoy a good game of cards nonetheless.

Bibliography

John Ashton, The History of Gambling in England. London: Duckworth & Co., 1898.

Monday, October 12, 2009

First, if you haven't seen it already, do stop by Alianore's blog for The Support Group for People Unfairly Maligned in Historical Fiction. It's hilarious, and, alas, all too true! I was pleased to see that Margaret of Anjou (maligned as an adulteress), Katherine Woodville (maligned as a child molester of the young Harry Buckingham), and William Hastings (maligned as a rapist of a virgin peasant girl) all showed up, as did Richard III (treated as impossibly bad or impossibly good). Do check out Edward II's, Piers Gaveston's, and Hugh le Despenser the younger's comments as well, along with Henry VIII's wives and the unfortunate "Pimp Daddy Boleyn."

Second, I've updated my website to add some pieces on Margaret of Anjou that have already appeared on this blog, plus some further reading on her. I'll be adding more Margaret-related material to my website in the future, as well as a feature called "In Their Own Words," in which I'll reprint various writings found in the public domain, such as letters and wills. I'll keep you posted!

Thursday, October 08, 2009

The other day, I was fooling around on eBay (a place I really have no business being). As is my wont, I did a search for "Despenser" (among other searches) and lo and behold, what appeared but a doll costume entitled "Eleanor le Despenser"! I said to myself, "Self, if there's one person in the world who truly needs this, it is you!" (Talk about niche marketing.) So in the great tradition of consumerism, I pressed the "Bid" button, and in due course, I won the auction and received my item.

Unfortunately, in my excitement that someone would name a doll costume after Eleanor, I failed to note the seller's very plain statement that the doll was not included. As this costume was made for a 17-inch doll, and all of my own fashion dolls are 11-1/2-inch Barbies, this has made for problems in the fitting room, as the folks on "Project Runway" would say. Still, don't you think Eleanor looks nice? (Perhaps Hugh or her uncle Edward II will stop by and pay her a compliment. And there is a scene in The Traitor's Wife where she has to wear a larger woman's clothing, so maybe this might work after all.) There's a mantle that goes with it as well, but since this was a smaller doll, it rather overwhelmed her, so I left it off.

I might not be blogging much in the next week or so, as I'm working on a presentation for the Richard III's Society's upcoming meeting here in the US. My presentation will be on medieval gambling, since the conference is being held in Las Vegas. Getting it ready (including perusing PowerPoint 2007 for Dummies), as well as practicing the secret handshake that we Woodville lovers give each other at Richard III events, will be keeping me busy for a while.

I have a copy of Hilary Mantel's Booker-prize-winning Wolf Hall to take on the plane. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Lastly, but no means leastly, Lisa over at BookBlab is giving away a copy of Hugh and Bess, so stop on by before October 31 and sign up!

Monday, October 05, 2009

Following are some reviews I did for the August issue of the Historical Novels Reviews. First, though, I'd like to mention that there are some nonfiction books I'm chomping at the bit to read! First is Arlene Okerlund's biography of Elizabeth of York, who to my knowledge has been the subject of only one previous biography, that by Nancy Lenz Harvey. Harvey applied novelistic techniques to her biography, which focused mainly on Elizabeth's life before her marriage to Henry VII, so I'm looking forward to a more scholarly treatment of this queen. It's on its way to me already.

Second, Christopher Wilkins has a biography of Edward Woodville, The Last Knight Errant, coming out in December! That will be on my Christmas list if the cats walking over the keyboard don't accidentally put it in my Amazon shopping cart before that. (Silly cats.)

Not medieval, but as a long-time Dickensian (and here you thought I was only a Despenserian and a Woodvillian), I'm excited about Michael Slater's new biography of Charles Dickens. Oh, and there's also Leandra de Lisle's biography of Lady Jane Grey and her sisters, which I read for the November Historical Novels Review and thought was excellent.

In this novel, the sequel to In the Shadow of Lady Jane, young Richard Stocker is still mourning his friend Lady Jane Grey when he accepts an invitation to accompany Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, to Venice. A Protestant in a country ruled by the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, Richard is eager to take the excuse to leave England for a time and to consider whether he wants to devote his life to the practice of medicine. Richard soon finds, however, that he has not left intrigue behind in England. And when the vain Courtenay decides that he must have his portrait done at an inexpensive price, Richard’s dogged quests through Venice’s art studios will lead him to convents and courtesans—and to a new love as well.

Earnest and resourceful, Richard, the narrator, is a likeable hero, whose coming-of-age story is all the more appealing for being set in the atmospheric location of sixteenth-century Venice. Charles neatly integrates historical characters, including Courtenay, Francis Walsingham, Titian, and courtesan Veronica Franco, into Richard’s adventures, and he employs a broad variety of Venetian settings, from slums to convents to art studios. The story of an innocent abroad who gains experience and a fresh start, Daughters of the Doge is an engaging tale.

All of Victorian London is mourning the death of famous author Alfred Gibson, but one woman has not been invited to the funeral: his widow, Dorothea, who has lived in virtual seclusion since being cast out of her husband’s life years before. Shut off from most of her family after the separation, Dorothea has accepted her position with a quiet dignity that borders on passivity, but as she mourns her brilliant husband and reflects on their lives together and apart, she will slowly muster the courage to re-enter the world, to face those from whom she has been long estranged, and even to encounter the woman who Dorothea believes stole her husband from her.

Girl in a Blue Dress is based heavily on the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens, but Arnold, by turning Catherine Dickens into Dorothea Gibson, gives herself the freedom to stray from the historical record, though the personalities of the main characters remain very close to their real-life counterparts. Dorothea, the narrator, commands our respect and sympathy but has enough inner strength to avoid being pitiful, and the rest of the characters are vividly drawn as well. In her portrait of Alfred Gibson, Arnold does justice to Dickens’s own charisma and complexity; we deplore his behavior toward Dorothea while feeling the same attraction for him that his wife does. Gibson even gamely tackles the task of supplying Gibson’s literary oeuvre with Dickens-like prose and characters.

First published in the UK in 2008, Girl in a Blue Dress was long-listed for the Booker Prize. It’s easy to see why: this is a richly satisfying debut novel.

William Weightman, the personable young curate who assisted the Reverend Patrick Brontë at Haworth Parsonage for several years, is best known for sending Valentines to the three Brontë sisters and for possibly being the object of Anne Brontë’s affections. In this novel, however, it is the fiercely independent, unconventional Emily Brontë who finds herself falling in love with Weightman, who possesses not only charm and good looks but a social conscience and a kind heart.

Meticulously researched and written in a clean, crisp prose style, Emily’s Ghost encompasses not only the splendor of the Yorkshire moors but the hardships of daily life in the poor parish of Haworth, where, as one character notes forebodingly, few people live past their thirties. The inhabitants of the Bronte parsonage, human and animal alike, each possess distinct personalities. Giardina manages the difficult feat of making Weightman a genuinely good man without making him colorless; Emily is strongly individualistic without becoming tiresomely eccentric; Charlotte exasperates the reader but never entirely forfeits our sympathy; and Branwell’s better qualities are not lost amid his dissipation.

Without departing from known facts or engaging in bodice ripping, Giardina gives us a compelling and moving love story between people we come to care about deeply. Even those who have not read the works of the Brontë sisters should enjoy this novel thoroughly.

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About Me

I've published two historical novels set in fourteenth-century England and featuring the Despenser family: The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II and Hugh and Bess. My third novel, The Stolen Crown, set during the Wars of the Roses, is narrated by Henry, Duke of Buckingham, and his wife, Katherine Woodville. My fourth novel, The Queen of Last Hopes focuses on Margaret of Anjou, one of the most maligned queens in English history. I am currently working on a novel set in Tudor England. I use this blog to post about history (mostly late medieval and Tudor England), historical fiction, and whatever strikes my fancy from time to time. Thanks for stopping by!
The title of this blog, by the way, comes from the song "Evil Woman" by the Electric Light Orchestra. Back when this song was new, I misheard the lyrics as "Medieval Woman."